At the same time a new Italian nation was created by the admission to Roman citizenship of all the peoples dwelling in Italy south of the Alps.
The period 133 to 78 B. C. covers the first stage in the struggle which brought the Republic to an end, and closes with the Senate in full possession of its old prerogatives, while the powers of the tribunate and Assembly have been seriously curtailed. In this struggle the Roman citizen body was aligned in two groups. The one, which supported the claims of the Senate, was called the party of the “Optimates” or aristocrats; the other, which challenged these claims, was known as the people’s party or the “Populares.”
I. The Agrarian Laws of Tiberius Gracchus: 133 b. c.
Tiberius Gracchus, tribune, 133 B. C. The opening of the struggle was brought on by the agrarian legislation proposed by Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune for the year 133 B. C. Gracchus, then thirty years of age, was one of the most prominent young Romans of his time, being the son of the consul whose name he bore and of Cornelia, daughter of the great Scipio Africanus. Under his mother’s supervision, he had received a careful education, which included rhetoric and Greek Stoic philosophy. As quaestor in Spain in 136 he had distinguished himself for courage and honesty in dealing with the native population and had acquainted himself with the military needs of Rome. He saw in the decline of the free peasantry of Italy the chief menace to the state, and when elected to the tribunate proposed legislation which aimed to re-establish the class of free Roman farmers, and thus provide new strength for the Roman armies.
The land law. His proposed land law took the form of a re-enactment of a previous agrarian measure dating, probably, from the end of the third century B. C. This law had restricted the amount of public land which any person might occupy to five hundred iugera (about three hundred and ten acres), an amount which Gracchus augmented by two hundred and fifty iugera for each of two grown sons. All land held in excess of this limit was to be surrendered to the state, further occupation of public land was forbidden, and what was within the legal limit was to be declared private property. Compensation for improvements on surrendered lands was offered to the late occupants, and a commission of three men was to be annually elected with judicial powers to decide upon the rights of possessors (III vir agris iudicandis assignandis). The land thus resumed by the state was to be assigned by the commissioners to landless Roman citizens in small allotments, incapable of alienation, and subject to a nominal rental to the state.
Deposition of the tribune Octavius. This proposal aroused widespread consternation among the Senators, who saw their holdings threatened. In many cases it had doubtless become impossible for them to distinguish between their private properties and the public lands occupied by their families for several generations. The Senate resorted to its customary procedure in protecting its prerogatives and induced a tribune named Octavius to veto the measure. But Grac[pg 127]chus was terribly in earnest with his project of reform and took the unprecedented step of appealing to the Assembly of the Tribes to depose Octavius, on the ground that he was thwarting the will of the people. The Assembly voiced their approval of Tiberius by depriving his opponent of his office. The land bill was thereupon presented to the Assembly and passed. The first commissioners elected to carry it into effect were Tiberius himself, his younger brother Caius, and his father-in-law, Appius Claudius.
Death of Tiberius Gracchus. To equip the allotments made to poor settlers, Tiberius proposed the appropriation of the treasure of King Attalus III of Pergamon, to which the Roman state had lately fallen heir. Here was a direct attack upon the Senate’s customary control of such matters. But before this proposal could be presented to the Comitia, the elections to the tribunate for 132 fell due. Tiberius determined to present himself for re-election in order to ensure the carrying out of his land law and to protect himself from prosecution on the ground of the unconstitutionality of some of his actions. Such a procedure was unusual, if not illegal, and the Senate determined to prevent it at any cost. The elections culminated in a riot in which Gracchus and three hundred adherents were massacred by the armed slaves and clients of the senators. Their bodies were thrown into the Tiber. A judicial commission appointed by the Senate sought out and punished the leading supporters of the murdered tribune.
The fate of the land commission. However, the land law remained in force and the commission set to work. But in 129 B. C. the commissioners were deprived of their judicial powers, and, since they could no longer expropriate land, their activity practically ceased.
Still, the Senate’s opponents were not utterly crushed. In 131 an attempt was made to legalize re-election to the tribunate, and although the proposal failed at first, a law to that effect was passed some time prior to 123 B. C. In the year 129 died Scipio Aemilianus, the conqueror of Carthage and Numantia, the foremost Roman of the day. Upon returning from Spain in 132 he had energetically taken sides with the Senate and had caused the land commissioners to lose their right of jurisdiction. Thereby he had become exceedingly unpopular with the Gracchan party, and when he died suddenly in his fifty-sixth year, there were not wanting those who accused his wife Sem[pg 128]pronia, sister of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, and others of their family, of being responsible for his decease.